2004-10-22 11:53
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH CONCERNED OVER RUSSIA'S FUTURE
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti commentator Olga Sobolevskaya)
The average life expectancy in Russia is merely 65 years, and the population
is declining at a rate of up to a million a year.
"We are already faced with a choice: either our Fatherland will exist in the
future or it will not," Patriarch Alexy II said at a forum, The Spiritual and
Moral Fundamentals of Russia's Demographic Development. The death rate has
been exceeding the birth rate in Russia for nearly 15 years. The country's
population stands at only 144.2 million, which is an extremely small number given
its vast size. Experts at the Center for Demography and Human Ecology of the
Russian Academy of Sciences compare Russia's losses caused by the increasing
death rate in all age groups with military losses. The death rate for working age
people is growing as well; last year, over 233,000 people died prematurely. As
a result, male life expectancy in Russia is only 58-59 years (134th in the
world) and female life expectancy is 72 years (100th place). The main reasons
for these figures are alcoholism and drug addiction, which lead to illnesses and
accidents. However, Vladimir Putin believes that these reasons "originate
from economic decline, the degradation of the social sphere, low living standards
and alienation from the main political, economic and cultural centers in the
country." In his opinion, the population decline can only be prevented by
economic and social development.
The patriarch put the demographic crisis down to the "spiritual ill-being of
the nation and neglect for high moral values." "Russia has gone through harder
times in economic terms," Alexy II said at the forum, "but, as they were
morally healthy, people saw the family as the absolute value and, despite
difficulties, had many children and responsibly raised them."
The Russian Orthodox Church, sociologists and public leaders see strong
family values as an effective remedy for demographic illnesses. They were mainly
discredited by the "second demographic revolution" imported from the West in the
early 1990s. It led to the family crisis, growth of unregistered marriages
and abortions. Women now tend to forge a career first and then have children. As
a result, the birth rate in Russia is now the lowest in Europe: there are
merely 1.25 childbirths per woman, compared with the needed 2.2. "If the tendency
persists, we could reach the point of no return, when it would be impossible
to reverse the decline and restore the country's population," says Alexander
Chuyev, deputy head of the Duma committee for public associations and religious
organizations.
Meanwhile, Church representatives claim the media is promoting "immorality,
selfishness, the cult of profit-making and freedom from morality," and some
married couples are not going to have children at all because they want to
maintain their current comforts.
The patriarch stressed that there should be no unattended orphans, while
families with many children and those adopting children should be supported, and
schoolchildren should be taught family values. "Everything that helps to
promote family values should be in the focus of the efforts of the Church, the state
and society," he declared.
According to Mikhail Zurabov, Russia's minister of health and social
development, the demographic situation can also be improved through the use of
mortgages. Some regions, e.g., Bashkiria and Udmurtia, are already writing off
housing debts to young families with children and provide tax privileges for them.
Other regions, in particular provinces in central Russia and in the Volga and
Siberian federal districts, are trying to encourage reproduction with
economic methods and, apart from the federal non-recurrent benefits per newly-born
(4,500 rubles from the employer, 2,000 from the local authorities and 500-ruble
monthly payments for childcare; $1 equals 29 rubles), provide "prizes" to
young families for births. In Moscow, parents under 30 receive a prize of 16,000
rubles for their first child. The third child is "worth" 32,000 rubles. St.
Petersburg families "earn" 8,000 rubles for a baby. In many cities, young parents
receive job-hunting help. All this is added to the federal targeted program
Children of Russia that includes the Healthy Child plan. In St. Petersburg,
Kostroma, Vologda, Tyumen, Sakhalinsk, Yekaterinburg, Perm and Surgut, such
support has raised the birth rate by an average of 7%. The government has already
drafted a program for the next four years that includes measures to provide
economic growth, improve the social sphere and the demographic situation, Deputy
Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said in June.
Experts at the Center for Demography and Human Ecology of the Russian Academy
of Sciences add that "demographic prosperity" requires an increase in budget
allocations for healthcare, the environment and the promotion of a healthy
lifestyle. The entire social climate of everyday life should be altered, experts
conclude.

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